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Monday, 12 November 2012

The Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) is
mentored by the Brent Trades Union Council. It was formed on the 28 July 2009
at the initiative of Sertuc, the South East Region of the Trade Union Congress
in London. In that sense, the KUWG is an integral part of the British working
class.

The KUWG recognises that the struggle of the employed
and the unemployed is one and the same, but it also affirms that smear stories
and marginalisation add to the isolation experienced by the unwaged. Thus in facilitating the coming together
of benefit claimants at weekly meetings, we serve as a springboard for
vulnerable claimants to confidently challenge the DWP’s draconian rules at the
JobCentre, and mercenary Atos Healthcare and Work Programme companies,
achieving victories and alleviating the suffering of the unwaged.

The KUWG accepts the solidarity of any helpful
political organisation, but as the KUWG itself, it is not sharing its platform
with any political group.

The KUWG operates mostly in the Brent and Camden
areas, but individuals from beyond are welcome. Retired persons ready to give
their time are welcome and can be very useful.

The Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) meets
every Thursday 3-5pm at the Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road,
London NW6 2JH.

The KUWG works consistently to help resolve the
problems of persons unfairly treated by the DWP and JobCentres, as well as by
their devolved private companies like Atos, Maximus, Ingeus, A4E, Serco,
Working Links, etc. The purpose of the KUWG is to defend our denied human
dignity. Together, we build our mutual confidence to demand our rights. We
denounce the demonization of the unemployed as if the availability of jobs
depended on our individual disposition to work. We reject with indignation the
DWP ‘Community Action Programme’ (CAP) that could force more than one million
long-term Job Seekers (3 years) to work unpaid for six months if this
particular Work Programme scheme is extended across the country. The 9
billion spent on the Olympics demonstrate that those in power can only find
money, which they do, by keeping millions of human beings in poverty and
dependency - like the women for
instance - who organise, produce and reproduce the human race and civilisation
without pay. This opens the door to every kind of abuse against the poor, the immigrant, the sick, the disabled and
those forced to be dependent. Society is
about more than making profits for the rich. The national taxation fund belongs
to society, not to the rich. When we say we want JSA at £110 and the scrapping of the Work Programme, we are not
asking for the rich to give us anything. We are telling them that they don’t
have the right to say no.

We demand that those on ESA ‘support’ should
not be forced into the ESA ‘Work Related’ category because these persons
need to work at getting well instead of looking for work.

Whenever possible and necessary, the KUWG accompany
our friends to DWP or Atos interviews and meetings. The KUWG condemns the mean
and cruel Welfare Reform Bill that was largely being implemented
before it became law. This Bill lends to the State the devious right to abandon
its duty of social care, as well as to overrule the expert advice of the
medical profession in all matters relating to welfare. We condemn the Labour
leaderships, past and present, for having connived with this barbarism -
fearing us, and consistently negating our power to help them defeat this
capitalist onslaught.

When the PCS union went on strike, the PCS, KUWG,
BrentFightback, Women’s groups and Left political organisations formed a
solidarity picket-line in front of the Kilburn JobCentrePlus, Cambridge Avenue,
London NW6. The KUWG, Brent Fightback and the Brent Trades Council are involved
in campaigns to stop people being evicted through the cuts in Housing Benefits. This added punishment drives individuals
to homelessness, unacceptable suffering and even suicide. The above
organisations are also preparing for a public meeting and demonstration/rally
on 15 Sept 2012 (noon from Harlesden Jubilee Clock, march to Central Middlesex)
against the ‘fusion’ of hospitals and the creeping privatisation of schools.

KUWG is part of the South Kilburn “Counting the Human
Cost of Cuts”. That group campaigns in support of the Criklewood Bus driver and
Unite Member Anthony Counihan - his
wife Isabel and their 5 children, against their eviction from the Borough of
Brent by Brent Council - and in support of persons like Nygell Firminger, ex-KUWG member who is believed to have committed
suicide after losing his benefits, his casual job and his flat, amongst other
problems. Like the familyonthestreet@gmail.com, the KUWG says: “Housing for
all!”

The KUWG works in a democratic manner so that
everybody has a voice, and the experiences of everyone can be used
constructively. Under the banner of the unemployed, it is our intention to work
in solidarity with those fighting against the welfare and housing cuts. We
believe that the conditions exist for the creation of a London-wide, national
and international organisation of the unemployed. Please help distribute our
leaflets, attend our regular weekly meetings and help us organise our collective
power to build life, our lives, ourselves.

The KUWG is part of the London Coalition against
Poverty (LCAP) that links together similar groups in London. Some of our
members have taken part in, and contributed to the St Paul’s Occupy London
Stock Exchange camp. We intervened also in the Brent Peoples Assembly organised by BrentFightback. We hope
to make links with all possible organisations of the Unemployed Youth,
locally, in London and beyond.

The KUWG holds regular Workshops and public meetings with
particular speakers. On Nov 8th 2012, we had a One Million Climate
Change Jobs speaker. On Nov 15, Pilgrim Tucker from Unite. Nov 22, Speak Out
Against Psychiatry and Nov 29, Previous Unemployed Movements.

KUWG asks sympathetic organisations and benefactors to
link up with us and to make donations. The KUWG thank the Brent TUC and the
Trade Unions that have helped us so far.

Alan Wheatley, Secretary

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group – 10.11.12

We urge Trade
Unions and Community Funding groups to help us fight the battles that will
complement their own in their workplaces and communities.

Friday, 8 June 2012

“As the
Con-Dem Cabinet of multi-millionaires continues to conspire on privatising and
asset-stripping our public services with lobbyists from global corporations as
'advisers', the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) helps people in Brent
and Camden and beyond know what they can do about it,” Alan Wheatley, a KUWG
spokesperson said today.

Meeting every Thursday from 3pm
till 5pm at Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH, the KUWG
liaises with Disability in Camden's (DISC) benefits advice team over casework
brought to KUWG by meeting attenders who become aware of the group meetings via
weekly leafleting outside Kilburn Jobcentre. As an offshoot of that contact,
Luchvinder from DISC will be talking to the Group on Thursday, 14 June about
forthcoming legislated changes to the benefits system and what to do about
them. And on 21 June the group will be welcoming Richard Braniff, TUC envoy
starting a group of young unemployed in NW10 on how we can help prevent the
youth of today becoming part of a reserve army of slave labour. Speakers
generally speak for about ten minutes at the start of the meeting, and then
answer questions for about a further ten minutes.

KUWG will also be represented at a
meeting of the London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP) on 23 June, and is
aiming to take part in forthcoming trade union demonstrations and activities,
as well as co-operating with Brent Trades Council and Brent Fight Back.

“What is happening to our public
services is a legalised abuse of vulnerable people, while the 2012 Diamond
Jubilee, London Olympics and Paralympics constitute an expensive distraction.
But, as self-help 'survivors'' groups established in the 1980s, a 'survivor' is
someone who is no longer prepared to be or become a 'victim'. We help local
people become better informed and survive as stakeholders and trustees of
public services for the public good,” Mr Wheatley concluded for the Kilburn
Unemployed Workers Group.

Sunday, 27 May 2012

(Please note, Back entrance where staff go in is in Coventry Close, and front of Jobcentre where the public enter is in Cambridge Avenue )
THEN 12 NOON A MARCH ASSEMBLING ST THOMAS’ HOSPITAL, WESTMINSTER BRIDGE RD SE1 TO RALLY 1PM CENTRAL WESTMINSTER METHODIST HALL SW1 9NH
The £67.50 per week Jobseekers Allowance and public sector pension rates are nothing for private sector workers to envy. Private sector company directors raid workers' pension funds while securing their own overseas. Taxpayers’ money secures MPs pensions, travel perks and expenses. Does this sound like “we're all in this together” or just more of the old “divide and rule”! Offshore corporate finances instituted under Thatcherism helped fund David Cameron's graduation and beyond; today's students are left with massive debts. When will we ever learn?
The BBC, dependent on public money, kowtows to the Government li[n]es, even after the Levenson enquiry, why are they still taking their lead from The Sun and Daily Mail? The Welfare Reform Minister is an investment banker. Did you know that? Landlords who made £21bn from Housing Benefits in 2011 won't be made homeless by the coming budget. Doesn't look like there will even be a mansion tax for the 940,000 thousand plus homes worth over a £1 million that have avoided stamp duty as they're supposedly owed by businesses... More council houses, an end to 'right to buy', and a Robin Hood Tax, anyone?
Bankers' greed and irresponsibility (as described by Mervyn King recently) have been rewarded with bonuses stolen from the taxpayer. 'Austerity' is just an excuse for dismantling the Welfare State and driving down all workers’ pay.
We support Job Centre staff who stand up to the bullying elite, and seek to protect both their co-workers and claimants from the stresses bought on by deliberately reducing on-site staff in favour of call centres and computerised forms. Claimants and Workers shouldn’t cross picket lines, but join them, as WE are all being stuffed together. Unemployed and Workers (Public AND Private) should stick together!
STUFF THE CUTS AND STUFF THIS RUTHLESS GOVERNMENT!
Meetings: 3pm-5pm Thursdays, Room 6, Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, London, NW6 2JH
KUWG Web page: http://Kilburnunemployed.blogspot.com.
Contact: kilburnunemployed@gmail.com.
0770 993 2267 Marie Lynam, secretary
Facebook: Kilburn Unemployed Workers
We urge Trade Unions and Community Funding groups to help us fight the battles that will complement their own in their workplaces and communities.
Cheques welcome, made to ‘KUWG’ and sent to:
The KUWG Officers, 85 Webheath, Netherwood Street, London NW6 2JS

The government lies to us about rejecting 'segregation' and 'discrimination'. But its education policy is of school segregation (mostly on religious lines) and its social policy is of social cleansing and partitioning. The government says that Big Society is philantropic, but the Osborne budget has proved that the philantropy of the very rich is only another tax dodge. The lies of the 1% are reported at face value, but the unemployed, the sick, the single parents and those on benefit sanctions face the reality. The TUC and Unison leaders - as well as the Miliband Labour leadership - broke the momentum of 30 November 2011. But on this 10 May, the working class base, employed and unemployed, is again regrouping. Let us not forget that the police itself will be demonstrating, on this 10 May, demanding the right to strike. The 1% have repression and brute force at their disposal, but brute force does not build societies. We are the 99%, we build everything.
DID YOU REALISE?
THE DWP DOESN’T THINK KILBURN CLAIMANTS WORTHY OF PICKING UP JUSTIFIED EMERGENCY GIRO PAYMENTS FROM THEIR JOBCENTRE ANYMORE? WE HAVE TO USE OUR OWN MONEY TO TRAVEL TO WILLESDEN, AND IT’S RARELY OPEN ANYWAY-RETURN OUR CASH DESK FACILITY!
ALTHOUGH KILBURN JOBCENTRE OPENS 9AM-5PM, GROUPS OF CLAIMANTS ARE NOW REQUIRED TO COME IN AT 8.30AM (WHEN THE JCP IS STILL CLOSED TO OTHERS) AND IF NOT ON TIME, THEY ARE LOCKED OUT UNTIL 9AM AND SANCTIONED! THE MANAGER WHO ORGANISES THESE GROUPS OPENLY ADMITS TO THIS PRACTICE! STOP THIS OBVIOUS MONEY-SAVING RUSE AND VICTIMISATION!
PEOPLE ON METHADONE, AND PEOPLE WHO CAN BARELY STAND, ARE TOLD THEY ARE FIT FOR WORK OR FOR PREPARING FOR WORK! WE WANT THE DWP AND ATOS (MEDICAL ASSESSORS) TO EMPLOY METHADONE TAKING CLAIMANTS, AND THOSE WHO CAN HARDLY WALK, AND TO LET US KNOW ALL THE COMPANIES WHO ADVERTISE FOR SUCH PEOPLE! THE DISGUSTING PLANS TO SHUT DOWN REMPLOY FACTORIES WHERE DISABLED WORKERS ARE GOING TO BE MADE UNEMPLOYED, MAKES THE GOVERNMENT’S CLAIMS TO WANT TO HELP THE DISABLED, A VERY SICK JOKE!
IF WORKFARE IS FAIR THEN DO NOT PAY MPS AND TOP OFFICIALS FOR WORKING FOR THE STATE, BUT ONLY PAY THEM THE SAME AS CLAIMANTS, IT’S ONLY FAIR…WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, AREN’T WE?
THE PCS UNION CALCULATE THAT BECAUSE OF SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENT CHANGES JSA INSTEAD OF BEING £67.50, SHOULD BE AT LEAST £110 A WEEK!
OUR YOUNG PEOPLE GET NO INCREASE OR 5P AN HOUR INCREASE ON MINIMUM WAGE TO PAY FOR TOP EARNERS TO HAVE 5% TAX DECREASE! SHAME!! JOB CUTS ARE AFFECTING BLACK AND FEMALE WORKERS THE MOST! SHAME AGAIN!
2000 TOP CIVIL SERVANTS ARE PAID SALARIES AS SELF EMPLOYED, THEREFORE SAVING £1,000s IN TAX AND ARROGANTLY DEPRIVING THE STATE, WHILE HARD ON US!
WHO ARE THE REAL BENEFIT THIEVES?
MAKE JOBSEEKERS ALLOWANCE £110 PER WEEK!

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group has joined Brent Fightback and Brent Trades Council in opposition to what it calls “Brent Council's Council Tax on free speech.”
Brent Council plans to institute licensing of organisations other than charities and political parties that deliver leaflets in the Borough of Brent. “This is not only an attack on free speech,” said Alan Wheatley, a spokesperson for the group. “It is also a way for despotic local and central government to bury disclosure of how widespread oppressive measures such as the sanctioning of benefit claimants actually are,” s/he said.
“The Council say that they do not want the reputation of the Borough of Brent tarnished by littering over the time of the Olympics. As usual, the Council has its priorities wrong while at the same time it is throwing people in South Kilburn onto the street and central government's attacks on poor people exacerbate the desolation and isolation that come with poverty.
“The Olympics serve as a branding platform for global corporations such as McDonalds that are notorious for shoddy employment practices and for product that leaves loads of street litter. Our leaflets, by contrast, help counteract the desolation and isolation that vulnerable benefit claimants experience via Kilburn Jobcentre and the JobCentre Plus network. Our leafleters are not paid, and to make our resources stretch further, we display our leaflets rather than thrust them under people's noses. People ask us for the leaflets that tell of our weekly meetings at Kingsgate Community Centre on the Camden side of Kilburn, and more. Further, people who attend our meetings who have had bad treatment at the jobcentre and/or through the testing procedures of Atos Healthcare that reduce the number of disability benefit claimants without curing them of their ailments, feel less inclined to throw themselves under a bus.
“We know of people who have won their tribunals for entitlement to Employment & Support Allowance and had but a month in which to enjoy their back money before dying in this the year of Queen Elizabeth II's Sliver Jubilee. The wait for a tribunal is about a year these days. Serial re-testing of claimants adds to their stress. The Royal Family, who cost the taxpayer much more per head, are comparatively in glowing heath.
“Through the invitation to our meetings that our leaflets represent, people who have been subjected to bullying that goes through the Chancellor of the Exchequer and ministers at the Department for Work & Pensions begin to feel better about themselves.
“Brent Council's proposed daily leaflet licensing fee of £75 is greater than the sum total of £67.50 weekly Jobseekers Allowance plus £5 per week earnings disregard for a single person aged over 25. That fee would hit us and our members hard,” s/he said. “Non-claimants generally remain blithely ignorant of the facts of how low state benefits are, and the fact that the £5 per week 'earnings disregard' has remained unchanged since 1988, but our leaflets help to set the record straight about that and the sanctions against claimants that are now routine.”
Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group meets every Thursday at Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH from 3pm to 5pm. With a dearth of such groups around London, KUWG helps benefit claimants in Brent and Camden and beyond to the help they need, when they need it.
-----ENDS----

On May 10, 2012, the KUWG organised a joint picket of solidarity with the PCS union outside the JobCentre, Cambridge Avenue, NW6. As the reader will know, the PCS (Civil Service Union) went on strike on that day to Stop The Great Pension Robbery and demand Fair Pensions for All.
As you know, 100,000 public service workers are going to lose their jobs in the summer. Will these people have suddenly become ‘lazy’ and ‘scroungers’? Or will they be sacked so that the State can lend more to the banks that speculate, pocketing the benefits and leaving the losses to the taxpayer?
The PCS stood outside the JobCentre from 7.45am to 10am with the KUWG in an official picket. The picket was joined by representatives of the Crossroad Women and BrentFightBack, as well as some SWP comrades. A big support was given by members of the public and persons who had read our leaflet.
The following Unions were on official strike: PCS, Unite, UCU, RMT, NIPSA and ISU. Note that the RMT was present this time. The workers from those unions object to pension age rising to 68 for both men and women - the highest in Europe. The government coalition’s budget includes plans for the pension age to rise to 71 in a few years, and then to 74.
Like the Welfare Budget, the people’s pensions are being handed over to private corporations that want greater premiums, more contributory years and reduced pensions to be paid out, hopefully, to less and less survivors. On May 10 this year, there was at least half a million on strike. Unite members in the health service, UCU members in Further Education and 92 universities joined PCS members in this latest struggle over pensions. There were fewer strikers than on 30 November 2011, but there were new and very important sectors on strike, indicative of the deepening crisis of the capitalist system. Prison officers in the POA who had come from England and Wales were on strike this time; not only was their strike national and unofficial, it also defied the anti-TradeUnion laws. Add to this that 20,000 off-duty policemen demonstrated in the streets. They marched separately, but chose the day and the hour of the workers’ strikes to express their anger at their own cuts and police privatisations. The leaflet distributed by the KUWG called for unity between the private and the public sectors, as well as between the waged workers and the unwaged. It also made demands from the Cambridge Avenue JobCentre itself, where people (who often do not have the bus fare) should not have to come before 9am, and where giros should be payable and cashable. We call on the PCS Union to question nationally the DWP ESA Medicals that declare very ill persons ‘fit for work’, thereby sending unfit people to seek work through the JobCentres. We call on the PCS Union to coordinate with the BMA a campaign in defence of the primacy of medical care and expertise, over and above administrative and financial decisions taken by the privateers who are taking over Welfare in Britain. This is a continuing struggle - next instalment in June! Please find below the two page leaflet the KUWG used for this day of Strikes.

Sunday, 26 February 2012

The
Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) is mentored by the Brent Trades
Union Council. It was formed on the 28 July 2009 at the initiative of Sertuc,
the South East Region of the Trade Union Congress in London. In that sense, the
KUWG is an integral part of the British working class.

The
KUWG sent a resolution to the PCS (Public & Commercial Service Union) in
support of the strikes of JobCentre Call Centres Advisers who demand more time
and better conditions to look after the unwaged. The KUWG recognises that the
struggle of employed and unemployed workers is one and the same.

The
KUWG accepts the solidarity of any helpful political organisation, but as the
KUWG itself, it is not sharing its platform with any political group.

The
KUWG operates mostly in the Brent and Camden areas, but individuals from other
areas are welcome. The KUWG has the right to attend the Brent Trades Council
meetings. There, it can submit resolutions but it cannot vote.

The
Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) meets every Thursday 3-5pm at the
Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, London NW6 2JH.

The
KUWG works consistently to help resolve the problems of persons unfairly
treated by the DWP, or by the JobCentrePlus in Cambridge Avenue, NW6. The
purpose of the KUWG is to defend each other and defend our much-trampled-upon
human rights. We give a voice to the women, the sick, the unwaged and the
single parents. We stand against the demonization of those out of work, when
the bankers and the capitalist governments preside over a brutal and absurd
economic system that directs most of the nation’s wealth and power towards 1%
of the population at the expense of the remaining 99%.

We
support the Job Seekers in their economic and emotional struggle, as they are
robbed of the right to use their human creativity. Whenever possible and
necessary, we accompany them to DWP interviews and meetings. The KUWG opposes
the mean, cruel and ineffective Work
Programme and Welfare Reform Bill
of the Cameron/Clegg government. We condemn the connivance of the Labour’s
Milliband leadership that has no real objection to the principles of
‘austerity’ for the workers and more billions in tax cuts for finance capital.

We
protest against the health re-assessment of private companies like ATOS that
mock and override the medical profession. Labour unnecessarily introduced these
companies in British Welfare, leaving the British people defenceless in front
of the government’s war against wages and benefits. The unwaged are becoming
work-placement commodities, whilst the trade unions, the minimum wage and the
salaries are being assaulted and violently ground down.

On
May 10, 2012, the PCS union went on strike nationally, along with other public
service Unions, in defence of pensions. The PCS, the Kilburn Unemployed,
BrentFightback, Women’s groups and some left political organisations created an
official picket line in front of the Kilburn JobCentrePlus, Cambridge Avenue,
London NW6. In central London, the POA (prison officers Union) had joined the
strike, and 20,000 off-duty police persons were having their own march.

The
KUWG works in a democratic manner so that everybody has a voice, and the
experiences of everyone can be used constructively. Under the banner of the
unemployed, it is our intention to work in solidarity with all anti-austerity
organisations. We believe that the conditions exist for the rise of a
London-wide, national and international organisation of the unemployed. The
cuts in health, housing and benefits are throwing people out of their homes,
out of towns. Unite the Union is organising the unemployed, and we call on them
to seek TUC support to start new groups like ours’ in London.

Please
help distribute our leaflets, attend our regular weekly meetings and join us in
the struggle against the insane accumulation of riches by a handful of
profiteers who are bankrupting the peoples of Europe and of the world.

The
KUWG is part of the London Coalition
against Poverty (LCAP) that links together similar groups in London. Some
of our members have taken part in, and contributed to the St Paul’s Occupy London Stock Exchange camp. We
intervened also in the Brent Peoples Assembly organised by BrentFightback and the Brent
Trades Council. We call for the continuation of such Assemblies that link
the Trade Unions, the workers parties, the unemployed, the various community
campaigns and the general population. KUWG demands that JSA be raised for young
and adults alike to at least £115 pw.

KUWG
asks sympathetic organisations and benefactors to link up with us, and if
possible, to make donations. As the secretary of the KUWG at the present time,
I wish to thank the Brent TUC and the Trade Unions that have helped us so far.

Marie Lynam, GMB,

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) – 21.05.12

We
urge Trade Unions and Community Funding groups to help us fight the battles
that will complement their own in their workplaces and communities.

Cheques welcome,
made to ‘KUWG’ and sent to: The KUWG Officers, 85 Webheath, Netherwood Street,
London NW6 2JS

Commenting on Blog Contents

Comments are approved unless abusive, obscene, completely off the subject, disguised advertising or libellous. Publication of a comment does not imply that the blog administrator or KUWG agree with it.

Please note if I respond to comments it is in my Google log in — never 'Anonymous'

Commenters cause less confusion when they use their own names or pen names. A host of 'Anons' can give very mixed messages. Even if you use the technically easier 'Anonymous' button to make a comment you can still put your name at the end.

Benefits sanctioned? Take mass action!

An average of 1700 benefit clamants are sanctioned per year in each London parliamentary constituency. One of them might be writing parliamentary candidates in your polling constituency right now. How about more people who are sanctioned writing candidates in your parliamentary constituency and asking relevant questions at 'hustings' debates in your area?

Meeting structure

Helping you feel at home: We meet weekly in the Small Hall at KingsgateCC and start gathering from 3pm, attempting to start the meetings at about 3:15pm and definitely before 3:30pm.

Bring and share refreshments are included. We are not like the 'No eating or drinking on the premises' jobcentre.

The formal meetings start with firstname and what benefit we are on or a one-liner about what brings us to KUWG. (Pensioners and other allies welcome.)

We then ask for casework from those present, arrange who will help with what case, and go onto discussing campaigning leafleting and such outreach activities. We also arrange who will do the chairing or facilitating and note-taking for the following week. Rotating these roles helps minimise the risk of being dominated by one person and helps us build our skills as we share the workload.

Meetings actually finish at about 5:20pm to allow for putting tables and chairs back and leaving the kitchen facilities ready for the next group.